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Starting My Monetization Experiments with Select Advertising, Adsense

2011-07-01T10:31:57Z

Hopefully I'll make more than a few pennies...

You may have noticed a few additional elements around the blog here as I’ve begun experimenting with advertisements on both the sidebar and select blog content.

The key here is to understand that it’s truly an experiment – and it should be since maximizing your advertising spots and limited blog design real estate requires that you do robust experiments with varying providers, A/B split testing, pricing, location, and more.

It’s actually quite fun and it will provide some great lessons learned for myself (and for you guys) as I begin executing on generating direct advertising revenue for this blog. It’s pretty amazing to believe that only 10 months ago I had one single subscriber (check that image out!) and now I’ve got an entire community that I’m engaging with daily!

Two months after I first started TentBlogger I decided to put a BeaconAds test advertisement and shared candidly that I wouldn’t start advertising for some time and that I wasn’t even sure when that time would be (although I knew that it wouldn’t be “now”) – I purposely chose to wait and to build up the content and the community around this blog as my primary focus.

And it’s been quite a ride! 367 posts later with over 15,000+ comments and nearly half-a-million pageviews I think I’m ready to start experimenting with direct monetization and I couldn’t be more excited and thankful for you guys to allow me the opportunity to do it!

Locations and Stock:

In classic TentBlogger-style I’m going to explain my strategy and share my thoughts as the experiment progresses so that you can learn from my experience and take away a few tips for your own use.

Currently I’ve made available advertising spots for both direct sales advertisements and spots via an advertising network system called BeaconAds.

You can see that my current sidebar has them spaced between links to existing content and pages with varying sizes:

5 total spots on the home page.

As you can see there are 5 zones available on the homepage’s sidebar, 3 of which are through the advertising network and 2 of which are through Google Adsense:

300 x 250 pixels – 1 x Large Sidebar via BeaconAds for $500.00 per 30 days
300 x 125 pixels – 1 x Medium Sidebar via BeaconAds for $5.00 CPM
125 x 125 pixels – 2 x Small Sidebar Ads via BeaconAds for $250.00 per 30 days
300 x 250 pixels – 1 x Large Google Adsense for $CPC
160 x 600 pixels – 1 x Large Vertical Google Adsense for $CPC

I also have two advertisements specific to each blog post – a wide single post 570 x 125 pixel ad between the content and the comment layer and a 336 x 280 pixels via Google Adsense but only on blog posts that are older than 7 days:

I did this because I really do value my community – so much so that I want my content to be front-and-center for you guys when I first publish it with as little distraction as possible. Heck, I spend so much time on each blog post that I don’t want anything competing for your attention when you first read it!

But, if you’re headed back into the archives or want to review some old content and blog posts you’ll find an advertisement to greet you at the top of each blog post.

So that’s what I’m starting with and I’ll probably stick with it for the rest of the calendar year unless it really doesn’t make sense or something dramatic happens to my strategy that would require me to make some changes (like a redesign… … …).

Your Thoughts on the Advertisements?

My hope is that you guys will find my placements and strategy as unobtrusive and inoffensive as possible – and if you’ve been around here for some time I hope that the content that I’ve already created for you is so overwhelmingly positive, good, and beneficial that you won’t mind supporting my efforts in monetizing the blog!

Most bloggers though unapologetically put ads up and then let the community just “deal with it” but I’m really not like that nor do I want to be “just another blogger” who’s monetizing their blog.

As such, I’d love for your feedback! I’d love to hear your thoughts on advertising, timing, size, placements, and whatnot! I can’t guarantee that I’ll actually change anything but I can guarantee that I’ll listen to your opinion!

Thanks all and appreciate your support already! I hope that with these experiments I’ll be able to export some of the learnings in real-time to you so that you can take advantage of my work and monetization strategy as well!

Support Me (and the Community) and Purchase a Spot!

Of course, if you have any questions or want to talk about sponsorship and advertising you can always email me directly (see bottom of that page).

Give BeaconAds a few days to reconcile the traffic numbers but most of the other metrics are accurate.

Finally, please let me know if you see any advertisements that obviously should be banned – for example, there’s going to be a lot of advertisements (at least in the beginning) for “camping gear” as Google Adsense interprets “tent” in their queries. Just need to do some curation for a bit:

Google thinks this blog has to do with tents...

Go figure, right? Silly Google!

You just finished reading "Starting My Monetization Experiments with Select Advertising, Adsense" on TentBlogger! I'd love to hear your thoughts about it!

I use Standard Theme as my WordPress Theme!

10 Creative Setting Sun & Moon Photography

2011-06-30T23:00:50Z

Awesome.

I hope you enjoyed it!

[via Creative Greed]

You just finished reading "10 Creative Setting Sun & Moon Photography" on ChurchMag! Feel free to comment on it!
We use the Standard Theme for our blog platform!

10 Creative Setting Sun & Moon Photography

2011-06-30T23:00:50Z

Awesome.

I hope you enjoyed it!

[via Creative Greed]

You just finished reading "10 Creative Setting Sun & Moon Photography" on ChurchMag! Feel free to comment on it!
We use the Standard Theme for our blog platform!

10 Creative Setting Sun & Moon Photography

2011-06-30T23:00:50Z

Awesome.

I hope you enjoyed it!

[via Creative Greed]

You just finished reading "10 Creative Setting Sun & Moon Photography" on ChurchMag! Feel free to comment on it!
We use the Standard Theme for our blog platform!

10 Creative Setting Sun & Moon Photography

2011-06-30T23:00:50Z

Awesome.

I hope you enjoyed it!

[via Creative Greed]

You just finished reading "10 Creative Setting Sun & Moon Photography" on ChurchMag! Feel free to comment on it!
We use the Standard Theme for our blog platform!

10 Creative Setting Sun & Moon Photography

2011-06-30T23:00:50Z

Awesome.

I hope you enjoyed it!

[via Creative Greed]

You just finished reading "10 Creative Setting Sun & Moon Photography" on ChurchMag! Feel free to comment on it!
We use the Standard Theme for our blog platform!

10 Creative Setting Sun & Moon Photography

2011-06-30T23:00:50Z

Awesome.

I hope you enjoyed it!

[via Creative Greed]

You just finished reading "10 Creative Setting Sun & Moon Photography" on ChurchMag! Feel free to comment on it!
We use the Standard Theme for our blog platform!

10 Creative Setting Sun & Moon Photography

2011-06-30T23:00:50Z

Awesome.

I hope you enjoyed it!

[via Creative Greed]

You just finished reading "10 Creative Setting Sun & Moon Photography" on ChurchMag! Feel free to comment on it!
We use the Standard Theme for our blog platform!

10 Search Engine Limitations that Impact You and Your Blog

2011-06-30T19:36:05Z

NS-5 : From the movie iRobot

[This is part of the The Blogger’s Essential Guide to Search Engine Optimization Series.]

As we continue to move forward through this series it’s worth mentioning not only the awesome things that search engines do for your blog but also the limitations that they have so that we can respond and react appropriately.

And this makes sense since search engine optimization is about making your blog the best that it can be for both the human and the robot (but not at the cost of the human, of course!) and if we’re to do this in the very best way it behooves us to know what we can optimize due to the technical nature of the search engine’s software.

Some of these elements will require you to make specific choices about not only your content but also how your users engage with your content – in other words, you’ll find that SEO is about finding the perfect compromise between the robot and your community.

And the more you know about these limitations and compromises the better you are at leveraging them to the fullest. Shall we begin?

Ever see one of these...?

Search Engines Are Not Perfect

One of the most satisfying things about search engine software is that they still aren’t perfect – there’s something still missing and I feel that’s healthy since it represents the inability to completely mimic that of the human being (at least for now). Like the NS-5 administrative robot in the movie iRobot it was good but not perfect.

With this in mind let’s remember that all search engines operate similarly – that is, they are pieces of software that crawl through your content indexing as they go along into databases that are larger than you could possibly dream of.

At the end of the day it’s just data and mining it, extracting it, and providing it back to the user is a significant modern-marvel; but it’s not without a few blemishes or hiccups or limitations. You see, the search engines can’t mine everything – in fact, there are certain pieces of code, design, and formats that are akin to massive brick wall that the spider can’t crawl or dig through.

Here is a list of the top 10 things that modern spiders, crawlers, and search engines can’t do with your blog (or for your blog) content:

Flash – Search engines still have a bit of trouble indexing flash. Sure, Google and Adobe have released updates in the last few years (via services like Flex) that allow increased indexing of flash-based content but the challenge can still exist. The conservative blogger would opt for non-flash media when appropriate for better and more robust indexing opportunities.
Frames – Using frames is just bad form – so don’t do it! In fact, some search engines completely ignore it altogether. If you have a few elements that sport frames then you’re missing out. It’s worth the effort to bring those natively to the surface for better indexing.
Poor Link Structure – There’s nothing that a search engine can do to recover from a poorly architected website or blog. Guess what, that’s your fault! The challenge though is when you have the more “creative” blog designs that might look good but do terrible when trying to be indexed via a SE. Do you go with the clever and unique design or do you go with a more functional approach to your design structure?
Forms – Search engines can’t fill out forms for you and so any content that is available after the form is completely lost. This is too bad since a lot of us have valuable content that might require a query (or two) to be accessed. What does a blogger do then? They’d have to come up with another way to present the information without a form request.
Java Applets – These are interactive applications on web pages that you probably engage with every single day. They do include some HTML but they are run on the end-user’s computer and not via the web browser. Thus they can’t be opened, operated, or really touched by search engines. Sure, they make the web more cool and interesting but at the compromise and cost of not being able to help your SEO efforts.
Plug-in Content – This is very similar to java applets as listed above.
Audio, Video – Search engines are increasingly optimizing their software to index audio and video better but the fact remains that there are still elements in each format and medium that search engines cannot index. Our hope is that as the search technology increases these formats will get even more valuable (and they are already very valuable) but it’s something to consider in your creation of content as a blogger.
Code - Any text that is not in an HTML format in an easy-to-understand way (we call this the ability to be parsed, or interpreted) is inherently invisible to any and all search engines. This is a general catch-all for such things as flash and swf files, images, video, audio, plug-in content, and more. The quality of your code matters and if it can’t be simplified to an HTML-level then you’re missing out.
Internationalization, Language, Grammar – Many of you have probably not thought about the challenges of ranking and search as it relates to other languages and forms of grammar but it’s definitely something to consider. For example, different spelling of words impacts your SEO and these subtleties, while you may deem as unimportant, can be the difference between a first page ranking on a SERP to one on page nine. The difference is staggering.
Hidden, Private Content – Finally, if you have content that is behind a pay-wall or subscription or simply private then search engines can’t get to it. If you’re blog community and user experience is based on the “private” model then you can kiss a lot of optimization and organic traffic goodbye. What will you do?

There are other factors but this will be enough for you to feel confident moving forward.

The Human Factor

Finally, one of the more “touchy-feely” elements of search and the limitations therein is the idea around quality. You see, there’s still the “Hey I’m Human” factor because at the end of the day a search engine is just that – a search engine. It cannot tell you what is more important or less important based on the “quality” of writing, the “beauty” of your prose, or the “visually stunning” landscape in which the content sits.

It parses the content and see words, calculates density, makes intelligent calculations based on clicks, pageviews, social proof, links, and more, but it can’t tell you if it’s staring at a Picasso-quality piece of work and my 5-month year olds vomit. Only humans can do that (and good search engine marketers and strategists).

"Panda Slapped" by Google? Oh what fun!

Now, we are getting closer to a world and a reality where Google and the other search engines are taking into account elements of quality, value, trust, and overall experience of the site (and this is a good thing!)

The most recent update (affectionately called “Panda“) made these changes known to the world and a few sites rejoiced while many sites got punched in the stomach. Elements of design, usability, content quality, usage metrics, and social proof became even more important in calculating SERPs.

What This Means for You and Your Blog

Ultimately I want to keep this series practical and it feels right now pretty heady if you ask me (although some of you might be thoroughly enjoying this). There are a few things that you’ll want to consider as we move forward:

Stay Updated on Search Changes – Were you aware of “Panda?” No? Yikes! How would you have know about this unless you had read this blog post?! The pressure is on – but don’t feel discouraged. You see, the point is this: The world of search is one that’s constantly changing with new elements being deemed as more important and new limitations being developed that will change the way you think about your content, especially if you want to stay and remain as competitive as you possibly can.
Know the Limitations – Become fairly aware of the listed limitations for search engines and think practically how this applies to your blog. For example, if we know that java applets are terrible for search and you have a bunch on your blog then you probably should do something about that, right?
Understand (and Respect) the Human Factor – Elements of design, trust, social proof, and usability are all more important that ever. Practically this relates to your WordPress Theme (and how to choose the right one) and even the plugins you use for your blog.
Don’t Worry Too Much – You’re not a search engine marketer, professional SEOr (Search Engine Optimizer) – you’re just a blogger. Your job is to know of the general principles (like those shared in the SEO Series for Bloggers) and stay abreast of the major updates that will impact your blog.

At the end of the day you will be responsible for knowing these things and the more you know the more effective you will become. You can bet that I think about these things fairly consistently (heck, it’s my job to think about them, right?) and I promise that if you begin to inherit this mindset as well you’ll begin to execute better than your competitors and when you do that you’ll be handsomely rewarded with increased traffic, more visibility, and higher financial returns.

I want to be on that side of the fence and I want you to be there with me.

[This is part of the The Blogger’s Essential Guide to Search Engine Optimization Series.]

You just finished reading "10 Search Engine Limitations that Impact You and Your Blog" on TentBlogger! I'd love to hear your thoughts about it!

I use Standard Theme as my WordPress Theme!

Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid

2011-06-30T19:00:33Z

What’s the value of a product?

To finish a task? To get from point A to point B?

A Mercedes can get me to the store to buy a loaf of bread, but then again, so does an old Geo Metro.

Is it reliability? Good customer service?

A pair of Nikes wear the same as many other shoes that cost half the price of a pair of Nikes.

Is low price the name of the game?

If that were the case, Adobe would have gone out of business long ago.

Maybe it’s the experience?

After all, people will pay more money for the same loaf of bread at a nice grocery store, since Walmart can be so, well, Walmart.

My Grandfather owned an Ace Hardware store many years ago. At the time, he told me that Ace Hardware batteries were actually Duracell batteries with an Ace Hardware label and packaging.

Ace Hardware batteries were cheaper, but many customers would reach past them for the Duracell, despite my Grandfather’s knowledge. They thought they were better, but in actuality, they were exactly the same battery – as batteries go.

So, then, where was the value?

A label?

As I review products, services and applications, it can often be difficult to determine the value. What I find to be important, maybe completely different to someone else.

Customer service, warranty, reputation, image, support, experience, cost, price, longevity – the list could go on for a while!

There are so many things to consider, and I think it’s important to present as much information as I can, and let you, the reader, make your own decision.

What do you think?

What do find to be the most valuable aspect of an app, product or service? Or top three? It could be hard to boil it down to one.

Do you prefer an objective take, or do you think it’s more effective to add personal opinion and bias?

I can see how both have their advantages, but I’m curious as how you weigh-in.

And as always, whenever we review something on ChurchMag, if you have experience with whatever we may be covering, please, weigh-in.

Your voice is valuable to all of us.

[Image via snacktime2007 & Lif...]

You just finished reading "Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid" on ChurchMag! Feel free to comment on it!
We use the Standard Theme for our blog platform!

Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid

2011-06-30T19:00:33Z

What’s the value of a product?

To finish a task? To get from point A to point B?

A Mercedes can get me to the store to buy a loaf of bread, but then again, so does an old Geo Metro.

Is it reliability? Good customer service?

A pair of Nikes wear the same as many other shoes that cost half the price of a pair of Nikes.

Is low price the name of the game?

If that were the case, Adobe would have gone out of business long ago.

Maybe it’s the experience?

After all, people will pay more money for the same loaf of bread at a nice grocery store, since Walmart can be so, well, Walmart.

My Grandfather owned an Ace Hardware store many years ago. At the time, he told me that Ace Hardware batteries were actually Duracell batteries with an Ace Hardware label and packaging.

So, then, where was the value?

A label?

As I review products, services and applications, it can often be difficult to determine the value. What I find to be important, maybe completely different to someone else.

Customer service, warranty, reputation, image, support, experience, cost, price, longevity – the list could go on for a while!

There are so many things to consider, and I think it’s important to present as much information as I can, and let you, the reader, make your own decision.

What do you think?

What do find to be the most valuable aspect of an app, product or service? Or top three? It could be hard to boil it down to one.

Do you prefer an objective take, or do you think it’s more effective to add personal opinion and bias?

I can see how both have their advantages, but I’m curious as how you weigh-in.

And as always, whenever we review something on ChurchMag, if you have experience with whatever we may be covering, please, weigh-in.

Your voice is valuable to all of us.

[Image via snacktime2007 & Lif...]

You just finished reading "Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid" on ChurchMag! Feel free to comment on it!
We use the Standard Theme for our blog platform!

Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid

2011-06-30T19:00:33Z

What’s the value of a product?

To finish a task? To get from point A to point B?

A Mercedes can get me to the store to buy a loaf of bread, but then again, so does an old Geo Metro.

Is it reliability? Good customer service?

A pair of Nikes wear the same as many other shoes that cost half the price of a pair of Nikes.

Is low price the name of the game?

If that were the case, Adobe would have gone out of business long ago.

Maybe it’s the experience?

After all, people will pay more money for the same loaf of bread at a nice grocery store, since Walmart can be so, well, Walmart.

My Grandfather owned an Ace Hardware store many years ago. At the time, he told me that Ace Hardware batteries were actually Duracell batteries with an Ace Hardware label and packaging.

So, then, where was the value?

A label?

As I review products, services and applications, it can often be difficult to determine the value. What I find to be important, maybe completely different to someone else.

Customer service, warranty, reputation, image, support, experience, cost, price, longevity – the list could go on for a while!

There are so many things to consider, and I think it’s important to present as much information as I can, and let you, the reader, make your own decision.

What do you think?

What do find to be the most valuable aspect of an app, product or service? Or top three? It could be hard to boil it down to one.

Do you prefer an objective take, or do you think it’s more effective to add personal opinion and bias?

I can see how both have their advantages, but I’m curious as how you weigh-in.

And as always, whenever we review something on ChurchMag, if you have experience with whatever we may be covering, please, weigh-in.

Your voice is valuable to all of us.

[Image via snacktime2007 & Lif...]

You just finished reading "Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid" on ChurchMag! Feel free to comment on it!
We use the Standard Theme for our blog platform!

Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid

2011-06-30T19:00:33Z

What’s the value of a product?

To finish a task? To get from point A to point B?

A Mercedes can get me to the store to buy a loaf of bread, but then again, so does an old Geo Metro.

Is it reliability? Good customer service?

A pair of Nikes wear the same as many other shoes that cost half the price of a pair of Nikes.

Is low price the name of the game?

If that were the case, Adobe would have gone out of business long ago.

Maybe it’s the experience?

After all, people will pay more money for the same loaf of bread at a nice grocery store, since Walmart can be so, well, Walmart.

My Grandfather owned an Ace Hardware store many years ago. At the time, he told me that Ace Hardware batteries were actually Duracell batteries with an Ace Hardware label and packaging.

So, then, where was the value?

A label?

As I review products, services and applications, it can often be difficult to determine the value. What I find to be important, maybe completely different to someone else.

Customer service, warranty, reputation, image, support, experience, cost, price, longevity – the list could go on for a while!

There are so many things to consider, and I think it’s important to present as much information as I can, and let you, the reader, make your own decision.

What do you think?

What do find to be the most valuable aspect of an app, product or service? Or top three? It could be hard to boil it down to one.

Do you prefer an objective take, or do you think it’s more effective to add personal opinion and bias?

I can see how both have their advantages, but I’m curious as how you weigh-in.

And as always, whenever we review something on ChurchMag, if you have experience with whatever we may be covering, please, weigh-in.

Your voice is valuable to all of us.

[Image via snacktime2007 & Lif...]

You just finished reading "Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid" on ChurchMag! Feel free to comment on it!
We use the Standard Theme for our blog platform!

Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid

2011-06-30T19:00:33Z

What’s the value of a product?

To finish a task? To get from point A to point B?

A Mercedes can get me to the store to buy a loaf of bread, but then again, so does an old Geo Metro.

Is it reliability? Good customer service?

A pair of Nikes wear the same as many other shoes that cost half the price of a pair of Nikes.

Is low price the name of the game?

If that were the case, Adobe would have gone out of business long ago.

Maybe it’s the experience?

After all, people will pay more money for the same loaf of bread at a nice grocery store, since Walmart can be so, well, Walmart.

My Grandfather owned an Ace Hardware store many years ago. At the time, he told me that Ace Hardware batteries were actually Duracell batteries with an Ace Hardware label and packaging.

So, then, where was the value?

A label?

As I review products, services and applications, it can often be difficult to determine the value. What I find to be important, maybe completely different to someone else.

Customer service, warranty, reputation, image, support, experience, cost, price, longevity – the list could go on for a while!

There are so many things to consider, and I think it’s important to present as much information as I can, and let you, the reader, make your own decision.

What do you think?

What do find to be the most valuable aspect of an app, product or service? Or top three? It could be hard to boil it down to one.

Do you prefer an objective take, or do you think it’s more effective to add personal opinion and bias?

I can see how both have their advantages, but I’m curious as how you weigh-in.

And as always, whenever we review something on ChurchMag, if you have experience with whatever we may be covering, please, weigh-in.

Your voice is valuable to all of us.

[Image via snacktime2007 & Lif...]

You just finished reading "Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid" on ChurchMag! Feel free to comment on it!
We use the Standard Theme for our blog platform!

Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid

2011-06-30T19:00:33Z

What’s the value of a product?

To finish a task? To get from point A to point B?

A Mercedes can get me to the store to buy a loaf of bread, but then again, so does an old Geo Metro.

Is it reliability? Good customer service?

A pair of Nikes wear the same as many other shoes that cost half the price of a pair of Nikes.

Is low price the name of the game?

If that were the case, Adobe would have gone out of business long ago.

Maybe it’s the experience?

After all, people will pay more money for the same loaf of bread at a nice grocery store, since Walmart can be so, well, Walmart.

My Grandfather owned an Ace Hardware store many years ago. At the time, he told me that Ace Hardware batteries were actually Duracell batteries with an Ace Hardware label and packaging.

So, then, where was the value?

A label?

As I review products, services and applications, it can often be difficult to determine the value. What I find to be important, maybe completely different to someone else.

Customer service, warranty, reputation, image, support, experience, cost, price, longevity – the list could go on for a while!

There are so many things to consider, and I think it’s important to present as much information as I can, and let you, the reader, make your own decision.

What do you think?

What do find to be the most valuable aspect of an app, product or service? Or top three? It could be hard to boil it down to one.

Do you prefer an objective take, or do you think it’s more effective to add personal opinion and bias?

I can see how both have their advantages, but I’m curious as how you weigh-in.

And as always, whenever we review something on ChurchMag, if you have experience with whatever we may be covering, please, weigh-in.

Your voice is valuable to all of us.

[Image via snacktime2007 & Lif...]

You just finished reading "Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid" on ChurchMag! Feel free to comment on it!
We use the Standard Theme for our blog platform!

Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid

2011-06-30T19:00:33Z

What’s the value of a product?

To finish a task? To get from point A to point B?

A Mercedes can get me to the store to buy a loaf of bread, but then again, so does an old Geo Metro.

Is it reliability? Good customer service?

A pair of Nikes wear the same as many other shoes that cost half the price of a pair of Nikes.

Is low price the name of the game?

If that were the case, Adobe would have gone out of business long ago.

Maybe it’s the experience?

After all, people will pay more money for the same loaf of bread at a nice grocery store, since Walmart can be so, well, Walmart.

My Grandfather owned an Ace Hardware store many years ago. At the time, he told me that Ace Hardware batteries were actually Duracell batteries with an Ace Hardware label and packaging.

So, then, where was the value?

A label?

As I review products, services and applications, it can often be difficult to determine the value. What I find to be important, maybe completely different to someone else.

Customer service, warranty, reputation, image, support, experience, cost, price, longevity – the list could go on for a while!

There are so many things to consider, and I think it’s important to present as much information as I can, and let you, the reader, make your own decision.

What do you think?

What do find to be the most valuable aspect of an app, product or service? Or top three? It could be hard to boil it down to one.

Do you prefer an objective take, or do you think it’s more effective to add personal opinion and bias?

I can see how both have their advantages, but I’m curious as how you weigh-in.

And as always, whenever we review something on ChurchMag, if you have experience with whatever we may be covering, please, weigh-in.

Your voice is valuable to all of us.

[Image via snacktime2007 & Lif...]

You just finished reading "Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid" on ChurchMag! Feel free to comment on it!
We use the Standard Theme for our blog platform!

Fixing Pro Photo Theme’s Menu in WordPress 3.1.4

2011-06-30T19:09:41Z

One of the challenges of maintaining a project that has dependencies on other software is making sure that future upgrades of said dependencies don’t cause any unintended side effects.

Whenever a new version of WordPress is about to be released, we make every effort to make sure that our products are compatible. Unfortunately, the most recent upgrade to WordPress affect Pro Photo’s menu system.

If you’re seeing bogus menus on your site, here’s the fix (it’s easy!):

Login to WordPress, click on Appearance, then click on Editor.
Locate the file header.php and load it up into the editor.
Look for three areas in the code that contain wp_nav_menu. Before editing the code, each block should look like this:

The menu above the header:

wp_nav_menu(
  array(
    'sort_column' => 'menu-order',
    'menu_class' => 'nav clearfix fl',
    'container_id' => 'menu_top',
    'container_class' => 'menu clearfix fl',
    'show_home' => 0,
    'theme_location' => 'top-menu'
  )
);,

The menu next to the site’s title:

wp_nav_menu(
  array(
    'sort_column' => 'menu-order',
    'menu_class' => 'nav clearfix fl',
    'container_id' => 'menu_top',
    'container_class' => 'menu clearfix fl',
    'show_home' => 0,
    'theme_location' => 'main-menu'
  )

);

And finally, the menu below the header

wp_nav_menu(
  array(
    'sort_column' => 'menu-order',
    'menu_class' => 'nav clearfix fl',
    'container_id' => 'menu_top',
    'container_class' => 'menu clearfix fl',
    'show_home' => 0,
    'theme_location' => 'under-menu'
  )
);

A new parameter needs to be added to each of these three function calls:

'fallback_cb' => false

Each of the above three calls should look like this:

wp_nav_menu(
  array(
    'sort_column' => 'menu-order',
    'menu_class' => 'nav clearfix',
    'container_id' => 'menu_under',
    'container_class' => 'menu col-full',
    'show_home' => 0,
    'theme_location' => 'under-menu',
    'fallback_cb' => false
  )
);

Don’t copy and paste the entire block above as each of the three blocks are unique to their location in the header. Instead, just add the new line to each call.

Additionally, notice that directory after the line containing theme location, a comma was added, and the subsequent call to ‘fallback_cb’ => false was added. Do this for each of the three blocks (but don’t change their theme locations) and you should be all setup!

Fixing Pro Photo Theme’s Menu in WordPress 3.1.4 is a post from: State of the 8BIT!

YouVersion Reaches 20 Million Bookmarks [Infographic]

2011-06-30T18:00:27Z

YouVersion is the leading Bible app.

It’s not only free to use, but it’s available for just about any platform:

iPhone
iPad
Blackberry
Android
Palm webOS
Symbian
Mobile Web
Online

From desktop, to on the go, YouVersion can easily be at your fingertips, and by creating a free account, it will sync all your notes, bookmarks and reading plans.

Recently, YouVersion reached 20 million bookmarks!

Check it out:

[Click for Larger View]

Start using YouVersion, today!

[via YouVersion]

You just finished reading "YouVersion Reaches 20 Million Bookmarks [Infographic]" on ChurchMag! Feel free to comment on it!
We use the Standard Theme for our blog platform!

YouVersion Reaches 20 Million Bookmarks [Infographic]

2011-06-30T18:00:27Z

YouVersion is the leading Bible app.

It’s not only free to use, but it’s available for just about any platform:

iPhone
iPad
Blackberry
Android
Palm webOS
Symbian
Mobile Web
Online

From desktop, to on the go, YouVersion can easily be at your fingertips, and by creating a free account, it will sync all your notes, bookmarks and reading plans.

Recently, YouVersion reached 20 million bookmarks!

Check it out:

[Click for Larger View]

Start using YouVersion, today!

[via YouVersion]

You just finished reading "YouVersion Reaches 20 Million Bookmarks [Infographic]" on ChurchMag! Feel free to comment on it!
We use the Standard Theme for our blog platform!

YouVersion Reaches 20 Million Bookmarks [Infographic]

2011-06-30T18:00:27Z

YouVersion is the leading Bible app.

It’s not only free to use, but it’s available for just about any platform:

iPhone
iPad
Blackberry
Android
Palm webOS
Symbian
Mobile Web
Online

From desktop, to on the go, YouVersion can easily be at your fingertips, and by creating a free account, it will sync all your notes, bookmarks and reading plans.

Recently, YouVersion reached 20 million bookmarks!

Check it out:

[Click for Larger View]

Start using YouVersion, today!

[via YouVersion]

You just finished reading "YouVersion Reaches 20 Million Bookmarks [Infographic]" on ChurchMag! Feel free to comment on it!
We use the Standard Theme for our blog platform!